Bug Description

When tunneling X11 over ssh from Mac-OS 10.4.3 using Apple's X11 server 1.1 (which is based on XFree86 4.4.0),
vim-gtk starts up mostly OK in the newly created X11 window with all the widgets, but displays the error
"Unable to register a command server name/Hit ENTER or type command to continue" in the status area of the
editor window.

Apple's ssh version is OpenSSH_3.8.1p1, OpenSSL 0.9.7i 14 Oct 2005 (the ssh client on the machine running the
X11 server)

Either continuing to use the editor for a while or just letting it sit there displaying the error causes gvim
to crash with the message printed to stderr:

The program 'gvim' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)'.
(Details: serial 1985 error_code 3 request_code 38 minor_code 0)
(Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

Couldn't tell you because the only other Ubuntu installation I have is the 5.10 LiveCD which has a defective ssh client.

I can run other X11 applications without incident.

From the MacOS side we are now up to MacOS 10.4.5 the error is different and immediate. No window comes up, and the new error is:
The program 'gvim' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadAtom (invalid Atom parameter)'.
(Details: serial 184 error_code 5 request_code 20 minor_code 0)
(Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

I think this is not so much an Ubuntu issue as a gvim/ssh/X11 issue. I experience the same problem opening gvim from a Redhat server in X11 running on cygwin. Also the same trouble if X is on an Ubuntu workstation.

This seems to happen when I call ssh with -X, however, this doesn't happen if ssh is called with -Y. I have yet to really understand why that is. Within a trusted domain, it seems to be an acceptible workaround, however I'm not sure that it's very secure outside of a LAN.